Before The Dawn
by Dmarx
Summary: He knew exactly how to get that image out of her head. Post-ep for 5x02.


_Summary: He knew exactly how to get that image out of her head. Post-ep for 5x02._

_Author's Note: Picks up directly after the final scene of 5x02. It's not quite M...I don't think...but it's close. It's the closest I've written in a long time, anyways. __Thanks to beetlebug for helping think up the title (in a very roundabout way) and teelduo for the lovely cover art!_

_Disclaimer: If I said I owned Castle, would anyone actually believe me? Yeah, didn't think so._

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**Before The Dawn**_  
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_"We must believe that it is the darkest before the dawn of a beautiful new world." - Saul Alinsky_

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He caught up to her in the hallway outside her bedroom, snagged her around the waist and pulled her to him. Their bodies collided with a thump, Kate expelling a puff of air as her back came into contact with his broad chest and even though she did not want to, she could feel the heat through the layers of fabric between them.

"Kate," he murmured, both hands sliding up to the buttons on her night shirt. Wasting no time at all, he deftly unfastened the first one, then the next and the next, fingers brushing lightly against her skin as he unhooked her shirt, and though a part of her felt like she should still be mad, she felt herself already giving in to him.

"Castle," she breathed. She arched into his hands, seeking firmer contact, but bit back a moan because just a few short hours ago he had been rather intimately acquainted with What's-her-name's boobs and she wanted it be mad about it still but his touch felt so good and he had not even actually touched her yet. But even so...

"Castle," she said more sharply this time, managed to reach one arm behind her to partially shove him backwards. "Stop."

"Kate..."

"No, Castle," she retorted, curling in on herself but still refusing to turn and meet his eyes because she was _not_ going to let him see her almost in tears over this but she also was not going to let him off the hook so easily. "You don't just get to barge into my apartment after I found you being straddled by another woman and think that sex is going to make it all go away."

His hands fell to his sides, and though they were itching to reach out and take hold of her shoulders, turn her around so he could read the emotions swimming through her eyes, he refrained. Because maybe she was right; it was not all about sex with them, never had been. And it would not on its own fix the problem. But at the same time, he knew that he was not going to be able to simply talk the memory from her mind.

"Kate, I'm sorry. I don't know how much more clear I can be. I'm truly sorry that this happened."

It seemed so inadequate and so pathetically empty, and he was a writer, for goodness sake, he should be able to find the words for this. But in this case, he had none, so he would have to let his actions do the talking and, well, he was not above getting down on his knees and begging for her forgiveness if it came to that.

"Then maybe you should have thought of that _before_ you let her into your loft half naked," Kate snapped, startling him with her sudden ferocity.

"Okay, first of all, she wasn't half-naked when she showed up and secondly, _she _kissed _me_, not the other way aro..."

She whirled around then, eyes flashing. "I don't care. It still happened."

"And it shouldn't have. We just went over this, Kate. I just apologized."

"And what happens next time? Will it be another 'oops, this shouldn't have happened' moment?"

"I thought we agreed not to go on any more dates..."

"And what if I don't get there right away next time?" she barreled on, completely ignoring everything he was saying, because this _hurt,_ damn it, and she needed to get it out. "Will I come barging in to find _both_ of you half naked on the couch?"

"Kate," he said sharply, bringing her rambling to a halt. "I already told you, I wasn't going to sleep with her. I didn't even want to kiss her."

She fell silent, mouth opening and closing a couple of times, but no words came out, and it struck Castle then just how deep-seated this issue was. Because Kate honestly did not believe that he would _never_ cheat on her, and he wanted to be hurt by it but at the same time, he understood that his actions today had done nothing to refute her fears.

"You don't trust me," he said softly, sadly, and Kate could see the pain written all over his face, the regret, the pure heartache.

She shook her head, because as much as it pained her to admit it, she knew he needed to know the truth. How else would they ever move past this?

"No," she admitted, averting her eyes, and maybe it was swift enough that Castle did not see the tears, but he did not miss the quivering of her lip as she spoke. "I don't."

"Kate." The way her name escaped his mouth was enough to draw her eyes back to his; the pleading, the agony, the fear that he had irreversibly screwed things up. "I spent four years fighting for you. _Four years_ by your side, because I knew that you were worth it. And it finally paid off and I have you and I _love_ you and I just..." he blinked hard, holding back the liquid that she could see shimmering in his eyes. Or maybe the tears were only hers, she could not tell because everything was so blurred. "I only want you, Kate. And I _need _you to believe that. _Please._"

Kate sighed heavily, ran a hand through her hair. His eyes were too blue, too piercing, so she turned away, side stepping him in her hallway to lean her shoulder against the wall, her back to him. He wisely stayed put, allowing her the space to work through this.

The silence stretched, and with every moment that passed, Castle's anxiety grew. It was swirling through his veins, the fear drowning him; fear that he had not said enough, that she would never trust him again, that he had lost her forever.

"I'm still mad," she said eventually, turning slightly and raising red-rimmed eyes to his, and he could see the remnant of the single escaped tear streaked down her cheek. "And it still hurts, Castle. But I..." she took a deep breath, and he could see what this was costing her. "I believe you."

"Thank you," he breathed, and though she had turned away from him again, was swiping at her eyes with one hand, she nodded her head in acknowledgement.

When she did not move after another extended moment of silence, Castle tentatively approached her. He could see from the unsteady rise and fall of her shoulders that she was still fighting to regain her composure, to put the pieces back together. And so he merely reached out to set a hand on her shoulder, steadying and comforting.

Kate tensed ever so slightly but did not attempt to sever the contact, and after another minute, his boldness grew. He slipped his other hand around her waist, held her loosely to him. This time, there was less resistance; she leaned back against his chest, but still her head stayed tilted against the wall and her hands did not move from where they were twisted in front of her, though they did appear to stop moving quite so tensely.

Growing bolder still, he sneaked the hand that was around her waist to the skin of her stomach, mostly exposed from the loosely fastened shirt. When her only response was to relax even further, he hesitantly latched onto her neck with his mouth, lips caressing her skin, the sensitive spot behind her ear.

"Castle," she panted, felt him nip at her tendon in response, growing more confident once again.

"The only boobs I want in my face..." he freed the last button then and the shirt fell open, cool air wafting over her skin, but before she had a chance to shiver from the cold, his hands moved to cup her rounded flesh and she found herself shivering for an entirely different reason. "Are these two."

Kate barely bit back a whimper and she felt her knees begin to give way as he caressed her, teasing her with his fingertips. She arched into him, body pliable and willing, yearning for more, more, more, because God, she loved his hands and he loved her and it felt _so good_.

He nudged her sideways then, stepped around her hip and gently guided her in a ninety degree turn. She was about to protest, ask him what the hell he was doing (not the first time tonight that she wanted to ask that question), but then his lips found her earlobe and a gasp escaped her lips and her hands automatically came up to brace herself against the wall and suddenly she understood why he had turned her around and exactly what he was planning to do to her.

His hands released then, fingers dancing their way down and across her rib cage while his mouth continued its ruthless exploration of her neck and shoulder. She shivered as his breath washed over the warm, wet trail left by his lips, curled her hand into a fist as his fingers traveled lower and lower, feathering across her stomach, sending fiery sensations all through her body and it was too much and not nearly enough all at the same time.

He nudged the shirt off of her shoulder with his nose, followed the path of the discarded fabric with a trail of kisses. Kate dropped her arm from the wall enough to allow the shirt sleeve to fall off, replaced her hand and repeated the action with the other until the garment was a pile at her feet.

His eyes tracked down her body, through the thin space between them, and he groaned into her neck as he realized that she this whole time she had not been wearing any underwear.

And then he slid his knee between hers from behind, wrapped one arm firmly across her hips while the other hand crept lower and lower, and then it was just him and his soft whispers and his touch and an onslaught of sensations that left her panting and keening, body writhing against his. She clung to his arms as she fell over the edge, allowed his larger frame to support her, and frankly, she had no idea how she was even still standing after _that._

Castle's strong arms held her to him tightly as her breathing and pulse returned to a more reasonable state, pressing soft kisses to her neck, her shoulder, her skull.

And when she finally managed to twist an arm around behind her to latch onto his belt buckle and proceeded to drag him behind her as she walked the rest of the way to her room on still-shaky legs, he knew that the bikini-clad woman's boobs were the last thing on her mind.

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**THE END**

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_Thoughts?_**  
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